Bright Lights Cast Long Shadows: All That Good Can Do
by Myth979
Summary: "Could you tell me about her?" Elrond blinked. "Your mother?" "Yes," Morwinyon said. "Would you tell me a story?" (A prequel to Even Stars Can Die, related by biased elves to other biased elves and passed on down)
1. Chapter 1

"You know my mother well," the girl under the desk said, arms wrapped around her knees.

Elrond did not look down. It was painful to look down: Morwinyon was a carbon copy of her mother at that age, or so he assumed. She looked enough like an adult Laeriel that he felt safe in that assumption.

"Yes," he agreed, tallying up how much wine Mirkwood was willing to spare.

"Could you tell me about her?"

Elrond blinked. "Your mother?"

"Yes," Morwinyon said. "Would you tell me a story?"

Elrond sat back and made himself look down. Morwinyon looked back at him, small and young and with Laeriel's eyes.

"I will tell you a story," he agreed, looking quickly away and putting pen back to paper. "I will tell it as your mother told me.

"Once, in Menegroth, safe inside the Girdle of Melian, there was a woman named Laeriel Glingaerien, who was raised by her grandmother. I knew her as Lairë…"

* * *

"I suppose she comes by it honestly," Erien said, looking dispassionately down at her daughter's body.

Glingaerdir could not quite summon the fury he wanted over his mother-in-law's callousness. His week-old daughter squalled in his arms and the flickering torchlight of Menegroth's caverns kept making his wife look as if she still breathed when he knew she did not. He said tiredly, "Could you pretend for a moment that you have something like a soul?"

Laeriel let out a particularly piercing shriek and flailed more than he felt a newborn should. He held her closer: she only fussed more.

"I could pretend many things," Erien replied. "Laindes is well out of it."

She watched him try and fail to soothe Laeriel for another moment before reaching to take the baby. Glingaerdir let her and tried not to feel as if he should not have.

"Best if you take care of the arrangements," Erien told him without looking up from her granddaughter. "I make the people here nervous."

Glingaerdir thought that was an understatement. Erien had pronounced her daughter's Sindarin name perfectly for the first time in his hearing. She usually gave it an archaic Quenya lilt or called Laindes by her Quenya name entirely. He had always suspected Erien was capable of flawless Sindarin: Laindes would have been happy if everyone forgot her lineage, but Erien never stopped reminding people by accent or manner that she had been a Noldorin Queen, and she did not show any evidence of shame. Still, she did not usually challenge the ban on Quenya directly. She did so now as she murmured over Laeriel in her mothertongue.

"Not to worry, Lairë," Erien murmured. She did not bother translating the name Glingaerdir had given Laeriel correctly – she had been vocal on her opinions of his choice from the moment he had chosen it.

Laeriel's eyes blinked open. They were dark as Laindes' had been, as dark as Erien's were and as his were not. Erien gave her a finger to hold onto and Laeriel gripped it in a tiny fist.

"Yes," Erien said, as if Laeriel's infant noises were intelligible. "I have you. Not to worry at all."

She looked up, raising an eyebrow when she saw Glingaerdir still standing there. He turned on his heel and left.

Laeriel had calmed the moment Erien took her from him.

* * *

"Lairiel!" Erien called. Laeriel did not wince at her grandmother's refusal to say her name quite right.

Goldor had less practice. He went stonefaced every time Erien slurred her s's into th's, or called Laeriel 'Lairë' as if it was a slip of the tongue and not a deliberate reminder of Erien's history. Still, it was better than most other inhabitants of Menegroth: even those that had decided to forgive Laeriel the accident of her ancestry would ask quietly how she was dealing 'with that'.

"Do not mind her," Laeriel said. "She will not say another word against you."

Goldor's face softened. "I am sorry it took a fight to make it so."

Laeriel shook her head - Erien had given in more out of surprise than anything, she thought, that Laeriel had disagreed at all. To Erien it had only made sense to point out that Goldor was a common Sindar boy, and no match for her granddaughter, who should have been a princess. She had done so in Goldor's hearing.

Laeriel had replied that noble Noldor were near extinct, and that those who did live had an upsetting tendency towards kinslaying, and that her love affairs were just that - her affairs. They had not spoken when Laeriel escorted Goldor to the door and bid him goodnight, and they had not spoken for two weeks after.

"My father did not want me to marry Caranthir either," Erien had said finally at the end of it. Laeriel did not point out that Erien's father might have had a point: neither response nor lack of it was an apology, but it was as close as either of them was willing to give.

Now Goldor took her hands and kissed the back of each and let her go reluctantly. Laeriel slipped back into the suite of rooms she and her grandmother shared.

"You have need of me?" she asked when she joined Erien. She asked in Quenya: it had reigned as the language of the house since Glingaerdir died, even if Erien still did not use it around others. Her grandmother was in the study that had been her father's bedroom.

Her grandmother smiled at her, as she smiled at no one and nothing else. "How went weapons practice?"

"It went well," Laeriel said.

"Of course it did." Erien often said proudly that Laeriel had inherited her uncle's gift with weaponry, which was another reason no one in Menegroth could be comfortable around her: no one who spoke with pride of their granddaughter being like Maedhros Fëanorion even in skill could be loved by Sindar, never mind that he was actually Laeriel's great-uncle.

She also said Laeriel got it from both sides of the family. No one thought she meant Glingaerdir, who had been a poet and a gardener, and who everyone said did his best to make Laindes laugh. Erien's swords hung over her bed. They were as obviously well-used as they were well cared for.

"You have need of me?" Laeriel asked again.

Erien tapped her fingers on the table, eyebrow raised in mild reproof. Quenya was a language built on roundabouts and beauty: usually they would wind back around to the original subject naturally. Only emergency was reason for abruptness, Erien had told Laeriel once.

"What will our relatives say?" she had asked.

"I do not see any of them around," Laeriel had replied.

Laeriel had never been skilled at winding around.

Now Erien sighed. "You have something you need to return to?"

"I was speaking to Goldor."

Erien's smile stiffened, if only barely. "He seems nice enough."

Laeriel raised both her eyebrows but said nothing.

"Why not take him with you?"

Laeriel blinked. "Take him with me where?"

"If you would take a letter for me to Andiel, in Calendor? She has agreed to make something to my specifications."

"Something?"

Erien smiled at her again. "A surprise."

"You do not like me to leave," Laeriel pointed out. "You say it is not safe."

"If I keep you here," Erien said, eyes going blank, "all you will want to do is leave."

That was not true, but Laeriel did not argue the point. She did want to see Calendor. "I will ask Goldor tomorrow," she said, and allowed her grandmother to kiss her on the brow before she went to bed.

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTES:** This is where we go super silmarillion-y y'all. Buckle up, and as always, feel free to ask if something pops up that makes no sense and you don't feel like figuring out which version or notes I pulled from.


	2. Chapter 2

"You knew Gil-Galad," Morwinyon said. Elrond had given up being surprised by her appearances or by her questions, but he did wonder what interest a four year old had in Gil-Galad. He did not wonder how she had heard of him: aside from Gil-Galad's fame, her parents could hardly keep from mentioning him forever.

"I knew Gil-Galad," he agreed as he shuffled through papers, looking for the latest border report on a desk full of all sorts of reports.

Morwinyon made a face at him. "Must I ask?"

"One should always ask," Elrond replied, looking over at her with a raised brow. Today she was curled up beside a bookshelf, still on the floor. He had not seen her earlier, and he had not heard the door open.

"My mother wrote a poem," Morwinyon said. "She knew him. I would know how, please."

Elrond sighed, though he did not really mind speaking of Gil-Galad.

"As your mother told me," he began, "there was a boy who did not expect to be king…"

* * *

Gil-Galad was the second child and only son of Orodreth, who was Lord of Nargothrond until Nargothrond was no more and Orodreth died with it. Gil-Galad was born years before that, though.

The boy was a solemn child, staring at everything with wide grey eyes as if taking in details even as an infant. When his mother showed him off to his father's subjects they cooed and said what a beautiful child he was, and how sweet and easy - and he was an easy child. It worried his mother how easy, sometimes, as he grew. He had companions, but even those older than he stopped to listen when he spoke and none seemed to remember how young he really was. Only his sister Finduilas could tease him into childish pique, and she was so much older that she did not often bother, instead cosseting him while his parents attended to their duties and perhaps caring for him to keep back the tides of her own grief.

If Gil-Galad sometimes stared off into the distance as if he saw something no one else did or frowned at the air around him, well. Foresight was not a gift unheard of in the scions of Finarfin, kings or no.

It caused some unease, how closely Gil-Galad clung to his sister when Orodreth sent him away for safekeeping, but the siblings had always been close.

Nargothrond, of course, fell: the man who Orodreth looked to for council led not only to his ruin but Finduilas' death, and the survivors remembered Gil-Galad and how he had wept to leave his sister most of all.

Fifteen years later, at the death of Turgon and the fall of Gondolin, the lady Idril Celebrindal set aside her claim and that of her son, settling the high kingship of the Noldor on the shoulders of a not-yet fully grown Gil-Galad, and many of the elves were glad.

* * *

Dark dreams were not new to Gil-Galad. They had come when he was small, and they came more frequently with rulership of the Noldor. The trick, he had found, was to decide which were mere nightmares and which were warnings.

This one had the too-sharp quality that meant warning. He could make out the individual black hairs of the woman he faced, and the sense of familiarity was a powerful one. He could count her eyelashes – she had three fewer on her right eye. Though no one could actually see him in these dreams, he took a step back so that his nose was not nearly brushing hers.

Exactly his height. Pale. Eyes as dark as her hair. Definitely Noldorin, and the sword she held glinted eerily in the blazing light that seemed to be losing a battle with shadows. The question, of course, was whether he could see her because she was a threat or because he was supposed to help her. He looked around for clues.

Near her stood two boys who could not be fully or even mostly Noldorin, which made him lean more towards helping her: Feanori were well known for keeping to their own, especially when it came to marriage and children. Could she be a disillusioned descendant of a follower of Feanor, perhaps? She was not old enough to have crossed the Helcaraxë or sailed with Feanor herself. A thought made him look a little more closely at the woman, but she was not the boys' mother. She was not anyone's mother, or anyone's spouse. He had the impression that she was lonely, though why a warning-dream would give him that information was beyond him.

The boy to her left, the one who leaned against her arm and looked up at her fondly, was clearer than the one to her right, but Gil-Galad could see that they were identical. He did not know if it was because the dream deemed that boy more important or because he was actually touching the subject of the dream. That the woman was _a_ subject was obvious – he only did not know if there was more than one. He looked farther back, behind the boys, and saw another woman holding aloft the light. He should have noticed her earlier – this woman was just as clearly defined, when he looked, as the first, and she held whatever was keeping back the nibbling shadows – but he still wanted to look back at the first. He knew enough to know that was not part of the dream.

What was part of the dream was the light, and when he looked again he saw it was a silmaril.

No one in this tableau was Feanori. They could not be, not with someone other than a son of Feanor holding the silmaril. The Noldo woman was not even holding it, and if the second woman had any Noldorin blood in her at all he would be astonished. Moreover, none of them were looking at the silmaril at all, not even the woman holding it. She looked at the boys. The boys looked at the women. The first woman looked out at the darkness, sword raised defensively.

As if that was what the dream had wanted him to realize, everyone began moving. There was sound, too, even if it was faint: when the first woman parried a shadow strike there was a soft ring, like a tiny bell, and the boy holding onto her gasped, "Lairë!" as another bit of shadow crept towards his sibling.

Lairë lunged, stabbing the tendril and shoving the boys back towards the other woman and the light, and Gil-Galad woke up.


	3. Chapter 3

Morwinyon was in a chair that day, settled quietly at the edge of his vision, and she did not have to say anything. Elrond sat at the desk and had begun to decide which story he should relate when one of Laeriel's lieutenants entered.

"The search is ended," Orvaie said, apparently no more pleasant now than she had been when he knew her in Lindon. "There is no more hope. Your children return at speed, as does Inwiel."

Arwen and Elladan and Elrohir had been riding out with the Greenwood's scouts and guards for eight months of the year Laeriel had been missing. Elrond was not sure why they all had continued to hope except that they had no other option.

"Your services are no longer needed," Orvaie continued, "and Imladris surely longs for its lord."

"My mother is gone," Morwinyon said. Orvaie turned to look at her with no evidence of surprise, which made Elrond realize that she had not, as he had assumed, missed Morwinyon. She had decided to give him this news when Morwinyon was still in the room.

"Yes," Orvaie replied.

Morwinyon nodded and slipped from her chair. "My father knows?"

"And your brother. They are ranting and raving together."

Morwinyon nodded again. "My thanks," she said, and slipped out the door.

"Poorly done," Elrond hissed at Orvaie. "No, _badly_ done. She is a child."

"Look to yourself, Lord," Orvaie said, and in Quenya added, "It is not I who has difficulty looking at her."

* * *

Laeriel and Goldor returned to Menegroth and to clear trouble. Though the gate they meant to enter by - the gate nearest Laeriel's home - appeared unharmed, there were bodies just inside.

"Guards," Goldor said. "What could have-"

Laeriel spotted a foot peeking out from the edge of a wall some distance away and jerked her head in that direction. Goldor followed, sword out and ready as Laeriel's was. This body was not not dead by sword: three arrows rose from her back.

"Trying to sound the alarm?" Goldor guessed. Laeriel crouched to look more closely and examined the arrows.

"I think these are Noldorin-fletched," she said slowly. "Look at the feathers. They will use gulls when they can."

With a quick muttered apology, Goldor yanked one of the arrows free. It was difficult: they were barbed. He raised his brows at her.

"Yes," she said. "Erien has a few arrowheads from before. Look, they are smooth the whole way over."

"Admire the craft later, Laeriel," Goldor ordered, just as she heard the quiet click of an arrow being laid to bowstave behind her.

She yanked her dagger from her boot and spun, hurling it as the archer loosed. The arrow grazed Goldor, and her knife hit the archer's chest right over his heart and clanged off armor.

Two more stood behind the first, arrows pointed directly at Laeriel and Goldor.

"A good throw," the first archer said in Quenya, stooping to pick up Laeriel's knife. "I would expect no less. You are Lairë?"

It would not have been a difficult guess, Laeriel reasoned. There were few Noldo in Menegroth - in point of fact, the only Noldo in Menegroth were Laeriel and Erien, now that Laeriel's parents were dead. A direct translation of her name into Quenya would have been Lairiel, and they had named her how her grandmother did, but she was a scion of Feanor: perhaps the Noldo kept up with such things. There was no reason to be unnerved that they knew to identify her.

"I am Laeriel Glingaerien," she said in Sindarin.

One of the others muttered something under his breath. Laeriel thought it might have been "Too much a Sindar," but she was not sure.

The first said, still in Quenya, "We did not expect you so soon."

Goldor shifted beside her, hand too-tight on the hilt of his sword. He, like most citizens of Menegroth, did not speak Quenya. "Laeriel?" he asked.

"They say they have been expecting me, but not so soon," she said, and asked the Noldor, "By what right are you here, and what right have you to expect anything from me?"

One of them, not the mutterer from earlier, laughed. "Too Sindar?" she asked her companions. "She sounds like Lady Tirionë to me."

Laeriel stood so she could look them in the eye and said, "You speak of my grandmother as if you know her well. If you do, you know it is in your best interests to take us to her."

"What do you think we are here to do?" the first Noldo asked.

"Laeriel," Goldor murmured as four more Noldor materialized.

She translated.

"But why are they here?" he demanded, and glared at the archers. "How did you get in?"

"We are here for what is ours," the first archer said in Quenya, looking smugly at Goldor.

"Nauglamir," Laeriel said. "You will not have it. How many have you killed?"

The first archer shrugged. "As many as stood in our way. Dior still holds, but barely."

"And my grandmother?"

"In her home. Come."

Laeriel murmured to Goldor, "We will go to my grandmother, and she will know what is happening in full, and we will make a decision then."

Goldor did not look happy, but he followed.

* * *

More Noldor stood around the entrance of Laeriel and Erien's home, but they stepped aside with curious glances when Laeriel and Goldor were led in. Erien was in the study, and the Noldo soldiers closed the door after ushering Laeriel and Goldor inside.

They had left them their weapons, Laeriel thought absently. Why would they do that? Plenty of Noldor did not like those that still called themselves Feanori, and if these Noldor sought the silmarils that was what they were. Curufin's son had not taken the Oath, and by all counts had holed himself up to work and ignore everyone. There was no reason she, Laeriel, who was not even alive for the Oath or the aftermath, should be assumed cooperative.

She realized with an awful sinking sensation in her stomach that she had never asked if Erien, who was so proud of her granddaughter's heritage, had sworn. It had not seemed to matter when Luthien and Luthien's line held Nauglamir and the silmaril set in it.

It mattered very much now, but still, as Erien watched her carefully from the desk with her swords sheathed crosswise on her back, Laeriel could not ask.

"I did not expect you so soon," Erien said in Sindarin.

"Well, we are here," Goldor retorted.

Erien made a face and stood, beckoning. "Come away from the door. We have much to discuss."

Laeriel obeyed for lack of other options, but Goldor caught her arm before she had taken two steps, and when she turned to look at him his hand was on the hilt of his sword.

"You let them in," he said.

Erien surveyed him with a raised brow before looking back at Laeriel. "We know how best to enter the palace. It will save more to end this quickly and gift your grandfather the Nauglimir than to let it continue, and you will meet your uncles."

"Great-uncles," Laeriel corrected automatically.

Erien waved the qualification away. "They wish to see you, Lairë. There is no way to prevent anything more than excess, now."

" _Because you let them in,"_ Goldor said again.

"Keep him quiet," Erien told Laeriel. "Curufin and Celegorm are not so patient as I am."

Before Laeriel could reply or hush Goldor, he rushed forward and Erien sidestepped. Goldor's sword, which he had swung as if to cleave her in half, hit only air.

"You have a quick draw," she told him. "Put it away before I decide not to be impressed."

Goldor lunged again, mulish expression on his face. "I do not listen to the words of traitors."

Erien sidestepped again, swords still sheathed, her own expression one of mild irritation.

"Stop it," Laeriel ordered. "Goldor, she can kill you easily-"

"Then I die in the service of Doriath!" he snapped.

"Doriath is dead already," Erien said. "You need not go with it. Live-"

"And take the Oath?" he demanded. "I think not."

"How you flatter yourself," Erien said. Her hands were still empty. "We would require no oath from you. You would be accepted as Lairë's, if you choose, but unless you came to us with silmaril in hand we would not take your service."

Laeriel grabbed his arm as he made to lunge again, but he shook her off, shoving her back harder than he likely meant to. She stumbled back and fell more out of surprise than anything else.

Erien had deigned to draw one sword, contempt in every line of her body as she parried, and parried again, and parried once more, this time twisting her blade just so, smacking Goldor's hand with the flat so he dropped his weapon and stood, panting, unarmed.

"Lairë should have taught you better," she said. "Your guard is atrocious, and your speed can only mask your sloppiness so far."

He snarled and lunged again, bare-handed this time, and before Laeriel could say anything Erien brought her sword up on reflex and Goldor ran right onto it.

Erien blinked down at Goldor's body as it slid from the sword and hit the ground, and Laeriel knew her grandmother well enough to know that Erien's pause was less shock and more of a decision of how she should feel: Laeriel knew her grandmother well enough to know that Erien almost felt no remorse.

But then Erien swore and dropped to her knees, sword cast aside, applying pressure to the wound even as Goldor swore at her and died, and kept her hands there for some time thereafter as if she could perhaps will life back into him. Erien had never had much of a gift for healing, though.

No one came to the door, either, and neither Laeriel nor Erien called.

Laeriel sat and watched Goldor lay dead, and Erien try to stop him, whatever good it did, and could not decide her own feelings.


End file.
